Ok - so the trick must be to log into windows with your MS account, then log in with your regular username/password - but DO NOT DELETE the windows's account that has the MS account - which is what I did it hopes it would just ask me for the MS login info when I clicked on the tiles. I wonder if it works without connecting to an AD. Anyway it sounds like it is indeed possible to do what I want. Now in my case I will be the only user on the tablet - but I wonder if you had more than one user setup how it would know which MS windows account to link to which regular account. I guess only downside of this is that you have to create an additional windows account to get this all to fly right - that kinda sucks but oh well.

>Yes, at some point...and I don't remember when... I had to connect my windows login to my Microsoft account. I log in to the PC using my AD account. Windows automatically logs in to my Microsoft account.
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>>>As a reminder, I log into my work PC with my Active Directory credentials. windows then signs me into my Microsoft account automatically. I do recall setting up a Microsoft account with my work email, so Windows has that connection stored someplace.
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>>So you still, at some point, had to setup an account in WINDOWS with your microsoft account? Do I understand that correctly? Even if that is the case I still find this good news. I have not attempted joining a domain yet with my Windows 8.1 tablet yet so I have not tried that.
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>>>I clicked the Skype tile. I had not previously setup Metro Skype. It asked me if I already have an account or if I'm new to Skype. I picked have account then gave it my Skype account name (not my email). The next message said that the Skype account was already merged with another Microsoft account (my personal account).
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>>>When I clicked the One Drive tile, it took me to the one drive account associated with my corporate ID Microsoft account.
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>>>I think what's happening...and this is what you don't want, but I don't think you can turn it off...if you want to do some online activities such as OneDrive, Skype, etc, the account MUST be tied to your Windows login. You can have a different login that is not your email address, but you have to connect those for Microsoft online services to work.
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>>>I can go into account settings and I see a button to Disconnect my windows account from my Microsoft account. But you can't make it work as you want. You are required to connect your login to your Microsoft account.
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>>hmmmm. So if I create a simple username/password in windows 8.1 (no domian) - is a way to connect THAT to a microsoft account? If I understand correctly this is not possible??
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>>>>So what happens? When you do this?
>>>> 1) Log into domain with username/password.
>>>>2) Click on Skype tile.
>>>>3) Click on OneDrive tile.
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>>>>Don't these popup message that says "to view your ONeDrive, you need to sign in to this PC with a Microsoft account" - and there is my complaint. I do not want to sign into my PC with a micrsosoft account just so I can use these tiles. Why the check do I need to log into my PC with MS account to do that? Seems ridiculous that I just can't sign into my OneDrive account via a tile without changing the way I log into the whole PC. Am I missing something here? Cause I do not see a way to do this and it seems like kinda a big deal to me.
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>>>>>I don't use an email address to log in at work. I get authenticated to the domain and the Microsoft account is tied to my work email address.
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>>>>>>Yes that's true - but I don't want to have to log into my windows machine with an email address - I just want to use a typical username/password.
>>>>>>I don't understand why I just can't log into windows with a typical username/address and then setup each of the tiles/apps that want an email account with an email account. Plus the Skype thing is really stupid because I want to use my skype username not my microsoft account. It's crap like this that made me switch from a windows phone to an android phone and I see why MS is forever losing ground and has a shrinking user-base on the desktops and tablets. So basically in a nutshell - there is no way for me to do this? It seems like an obvious request that every user would want.